


Crabapples

by renquise



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Gen, oh boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaniehti:io crowns herself queen.</p><p>(An AU of Tyranny of King Washington.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crabapples

Kaniehti:io crowns herself queen.

Not a variant of clan mother, because this is a different role, and because they would not understand the authority of its office. But queen—that they understand readily enough.

Washington’s scalp helps, too.

With his excesses, there could be no quarter given, though she spares his generals. They fall into line, and she can accord them mercy. Washington, however—she cannot afford to be gentle. Fair, yes, but gentleness does not bring respect, not when she is a woman and a savage, besides.

(She keeps the wig on, because being queen doesn’t mean that she can’t have a sense of humour.)

She crowns herself with blood, a garland of arterial red across her tunic. She brings Washington to his knees with the Apple she wrested from his grip, but she kills him with her hand on her knife, straight-backed and proud. His blood is as red as any man’s, and its hot gush drips through her fingers and dries sticky and dark in the lines of her hands.

And so: Queen Kaniehti:io. (Not Ziio. They learn to pronounce her name.)

Of course, as all who would wear a crown know, things only get more complicated once its weight has settled precariously on her head.

Negotiating between the different concerns of the tribes of the confederacy is not a simple matter, and sometimes, the Apple calls to her, suggesting that things could be far simpler, far easier, far bigger: never telling, but suggesting in a way so subtly compelling and insidious that she could sometimes believe that she has little to lose. 

She has never been one to crave power, but the Apple articulates it as agency, as the ability to shape the future, and that, she craves; it is almost enough to tempt her into sinking her teeth into its flesh, the skin parting with a crack, and to taste its sour bite, because if the sacred object is an apple, as Washington called it, it is a crabapple, not suitable for the stomachs of humans. Not poisonous, not immediately, but not meant for them. She knows this.

It does not stop its call.

Ratohnhaké:ton is her strong right arm. He would never be very good at the politics of the situation, too straightforward and far too honest for those matters. He is as straight and true as an arrow, and Kaniehti:io would never have him otherwise. It’s good to have him at her back, to remind her that there are certain things that are not negotiable, because hers is a position of eternal compromise.

Her son worries, she knows. The word ‘mother’ is deliberate in his mouth, and she finds him looking at her like he can’t quite believe she’s there. 

He pulls the Apple out of her hands one night, and she knows at once that this time, she has gone too far, plumbed too deep, and it takes her a moment to find the confines of her body once more. Her limbs are foreign to her and too-familiar, her senses reaching out to some far-flung time and her body defined by Ratonhaké:ton’s arms wrapped around her. Her lips are cold, she realizes.

I will not lose you again, he says, quiet and desperate. 

She kisses him on the forehead, her chilled lips warming, and he lets out a shuddering breath that has the ragged edges of a sob and hugs her tightly, hungrily. 

He has changed, in some subtle way. He was always a quiet boy, but there is something sadder in him now, and it makes her want to tear down the world to find the reason. But they are busy, far too busy, and when she asks, he always manages to divert the subject. He does suggest, however, that they seek out a man by the name of Achilles. The man in question is old, suspicious, not inclined to trust, but his mind is as sharp as his tongue, and she cannot help but like him, for all that they cannot seem to have a conversation without argument. 

Ratonhaké:ton is gentle with him, with the same kind of longing he directs at her, sometimes, though Achilles cannot abide it. He snaps at Achilles, once, and then seems to regret it at once, though Achilles just raises an eyebrow and smirks, saying that he had been waiting for that backbone to assert itself, and in that moment, Ziio can see what he would have been as a young man, a young warrior, his back unbent and his knees strong and steady.

(She thinks of Haytham, sometimes. Wonders what might have been. But that is the past, and she has no time for the past. Only the future.)

Her son brings steel to her spine when she doubts. She has always fought for herself, but her son is as vital a part of her as her lungs or her heart.

She knows that whatever she may do, it is also for him.


End file.
